The training and testing of athletes for sports involves observations of performance in a number of areas such as: speed, acceleration, agility, endurance, speed endurance, power, balance and coordination. For example, testing athletes for football may involve devising and executing tests such as 40-yard dash, 3-cone drill, shuttle run, broad jump and vertical jump for measuring athletes' speed, explosion, ability to change direction, lateral quickness, power and so forth Similarly, testing athletes for hockey may involve devising and executing tests for measuring forward skating quickness, forward skating speed, backwards skating quickness, backwards skating speed, forwards and backwards puck handling, agility and so forth. It is desirable to compare results from such tests to compare athletes to other athletes, to determine athletes' own performance improvements over time, and to set goals.
Many tests for athletic performance, particularly those involving speed and agility, involve tracking elapsed time as the athlete makes his or her way through a devised test course. In the past, tracking performance of athletes during such tests involved manual observations of elapsed time by multiple personnel each equipped with a stopwatch and located at various positions throughout a field, track or ice pad during an event. An element of subjectivity as to precisely when a performance test begun, when it ended, and when the athlete reached certain waypoints was almost inevitable due to the human element. In addition, transcription errors were possible as each person capturing an elapsed time might write down their respective captured elapsed time after the performance test onto a table on a clipboard, or might manually type the captured elapsed time into a computer spreadsheet, before preparing to capture elapsed time for a subsequent athlete. Still further, amalgamating all of the disparate data captured by the various personnel by compiling all elapsed times into a master table or master spreadsheet would take significant amounts of time, sometimes days or weeks. The amalgamating process itself would also introduce risks of further transcription errors.
Improved systems and methods have been since devised. One method includes using a system including an electronic control unit for signaling the start of the race, and electronic intermediate and finish line units for gathering timing information for split time and finish times for tests such as races. While the use of such systems can improve the consistency and integrity of results, the systems themselves are capable of introducing problems. For example, the clocks incorporated into electronic intermediate and finish line units can each suffer from time drifts over longer periods of use. Such time drifts can contribute to significant skew in performance test results across athletes due to increasing clock time disparities between a start line unit and intermediate and finish line units, particularly when a given event such as a combines event lasts several hours or days. For example, an athlete being performance tested early on the first day of the event can have performance test results that differ in important ways from performance results taken from the same athlete at the end of the day, due simply to clock time drift of the devices being used to capture elapsed times on the performance tests. As a result, the performance tests lose integrity. This is highly undesirable particularly when the administrators of a league wish to compare performance test results of various athletes that were captured on different days, in different years, at different times of the day, and so forth.
It has been proposed to have remote timing units transmit a wireless electronic message to a controller when triggered, such that only one clock at the controller generates multiple time stamps, each being generated upon receipt at the controller of a respective wireless electronic message. While using a single clock may provide potential reduction in clock time drift problems, such a scheme introduces other problems by incorporating the communication channel into the timing chain. Any communication channel, and particularly a wireless communication channel, suffers from noise and the risk of collisions, which challenges can delay and even prevent receipt by the controller of such a wireless electronic message. Such delays or prevention of receipt of the wireless electronic messages by the controller results in time stamp information that is not truly reflective of the performance of the athlete during the performance test.
Particularly in professional and college sports, the accuracy of performance data captured during tryouts, combines events and the like is extremely important. This is because draft prospects, compensation rates, admissions and livelihoods hinge heavily on the captured performance data and how it compares with the performance data of other athletes. Therefore, while collecting sports performance data suitable for such high-stakes decision-making and valid comparisons across athletes, events and tests, it is desirable to reduce or eliminate any impacts of data capture error, whether caused by a human or by a machine.
In addition to the desirability of accuracy, it is desirable to have the captured performance data immediately available for various uses. One such use might be the making of performance data immediately available for display on scoreboards during performance testing events, in order to bolster engagement of both athlete and spectator, and to increase opportunities for onsite advertising. Another use might be the packaging of some or all of the captured performance data into real-time electronic data feeds accessible to sponsors, broadcasters, analysts, fans and the athletes themselves. Such feeds would be very useful for accompanying advertising and marketing information handled by producers of television, online and mobile content. For the athletes in particular, such a feed would be useful for supporting operation of social media portals directed to the athletes' performance statistics and latest news, as well as comparisons with other athletes based on age, level, field position and other metrics.